sorry

Inflationary use of that word often confuses visitors from other cultures. For example when they stop in the supermarket in front of the tomato-sauce where somebody else happens to be already, the somebody will shout "sorry" and go away fast. In small crowded places like the halls of the Wilfrid Laurier University, everybody says "sorry" in 30 sec intervals. You are perceived as beeing rude if you don't. You can conciously bump into people to make them say "sorry". Maybe that word really does not mean the same as "excuse me" but rather "you just invaded my personal space, you dumbfuck".

SORRY is a matter of controversy and political satire in Australia. The Aboriginal people want the government to apologise on behalf of the country for "The Stolen Generation". "The Stolen Generation" is the polite title for "The time when all the British fuckers running this country took Aboriginal children away from their parents for the supposed crime of being Aboriginal and raised them in abusive institutions before selling them to white families for unofficial slave labour". Our Prime Minister, John Howard, is refusing, along with his wife and two loyal voters. The rest of the country is in favour of saying SORRY and moving towards reconciliation with the Aboriginal population of Australia. We have T-shirts, stickers and a National Sorry Day.

____ _____
\ | Not suitable for anyone
__/ |____ under the age of 35
\ \ still living with their parents
____/ _____/
Not to be supplied to anyone with the above description
THEME/OTHERSkateboardingLANGUAGE Some ProfanitySEX/NUDITY Partial
VIOLENCE Occasional

Sorry. The long awaited skate video from the skateboarding company Flip is finally here. The 2001 and 2002 Transworld Team of the Year releases their first video since forming in 1994. Mostly filmed in Europe, their international team (no Americans at the time the video was released) kills every skatespot they visit. The video is hosted, Masterpiece Theater-style, by the one and only Johnny Rotten. His obnoxious, hammy, and over the top commentary, permanent sneer, and bleached hair accented by a snaking line of black embody everything we have come to know and love in the former Sex Pistols singer.

"'course there's a million an' one reasons why this little film took so long to make, but the major one is this: as brilliant as they are on their skateboards, they're fucking idiots off them." -Johnny Rotten

The video kicks off with a part from Mark Appleyard. His part is a perfect showcase of modern street skating. He gridns massive handrails, jumps down flights of stairs, and executes amazing flip tricks at will.

Ali Boulala: "He's punk, he's Arabic, and he's Swede. How's that for a combination, eh?" Flip's resident member of skateboarding's punk rock resurgence contributes the majority of the video's PARENTAL ADVISORY tags. He moons the camera and wears a pair of exposed plastic breasts (NUDITY), smashes a car windshield with his skateboard (VIOLENCE), muttering, "fucker owes me money," is humped by a dog (SEX/DEVIANT BEHAVIOR), and drinks constantly (DRUGS/ALCOHOL). This young ruffian was deported from the U.S., not simply because of his ethnic background, but because he found himself unable to comply with the country's more stringent drinking age. His punk rock posturing would be less easy to swallow if he didn't back it up with an incredibly gnarly video part. Most memorably, he attempts to jump down a flight of twenty-five stairs that has to be at least two stories tall, nearly breaking his legs in two at the knees.

Alex Chalmers, Canadianstuntman and concrete park skater extraordinaire, contributes the next part. We first meet him looking quite respectable, in a stylish suit, and next, he is fired out of a cannon into a car's windsheild. All in a day's work. Massive airs are de rigeur for Chalmers, whose stomping grounds in Vancouver, B.C. include some of the best concrete parks on the west coast. Chalmers is known to drink a six pack, or even a 12 pack case, of Coca-Cola in a single day, so his part is accompanied by skate legend Steve Caballero's band, The Faction, playing "Let's Go Get Cokes."

Young Bastien Salabanzi, born in the Congo and "passing himself off as French for now," is next. His tricks are some of the most progressive and amazing in the video. Bastien's skating takes the style of modern "technical" skateboarding, which incorporates alot of flippy tricks in combination with grinds and manuals, and turns it up to eleven. He flips into, or out of, nearly all of his grinds on large handrails and ledges. At the age of 15, he is already the European and World Champion.

Tom Penny's part in the video is perhaps the most anticipated of all. An amazing skater who suddenly dissappeared from the limelight several years ago, he is surrounded by rumor and myth. "Did he quit, or is he dead? NO! He's hiding out in France, and it took the likes of me to tell you!" (Johnny Rotten) Tom Penny's self-imposed French exile brings us to his quaint stone cottage in the French countryside... his quaint stone cottage which contains a mini-ramp and spartan living quarters. As Edith Piaf sings "La vie en rose," Tom Penny's part begins... and ends that quickly. Major let-down.

Finnish skater Arto Saari: "He almost died twice while making this film." A cartoon of Arto qrinding down a large rail, screaming, and being pitched onto his head opens his part. As cartoon Arto spews vomit and falls out of consciousness, the cartoon fades into real footage of an ashen-faced Saari lying in a pool of his own vomit at the base of a rail. He is carried off into an ambulance, and we see him in a hospital, hooked up to oxygen, with the spectre of the grim reaper hovering over his prone body. He slips out of consciousness...

...and the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" begins to play, revealing a messianic-looking Tom Penny, who proceeds to give his real part, presented as Arto's delerium-induced hallucinations. Reverb soaked and effects laden footage of amazing skating by Penny follows. This is what we've all been waiting for. And finally, a pair of David Bowie tunes accompany Arto's full part.

All in all, the skating in "sorry." may not push the "sport" of skateboarding forward as forcefully as revolutionary videos such as "Video Days," but it is probably one of the best skateboarding films of the year, if not the last few years.

"Forget your extreme games, your silly skatepark rules, your stupid looking safety equipment, because this video has nothing at all to do with that. Enjoy, or die." -Johnny Rotten

Since I feel that the database should encompass EVERYTHING, I am going to go ahead and node this little piece of the subculture of skateboarding, even though its intricacies may be unfamilliar to most noders. Node for the ages.